Restless sleep in children is a fairly common problem. But many parents dream that their baby would get enough sleep and let adults rest. However, this does not always happen in life. Although, according to many pediatricians, after six months of his life, a child can already sleep almost all night and not raise his mother several times, so that she would give him a meal.
What could be causing such a problem, what should be done to fix it?
Baby sleep phases
It is especially important for kids to relax. Indeed, it is during such hours that they grow and develop. This is especially important for babies. At this age, the brain develops in a dream, immunity strengthens, psychological unloading occurs, etc. In addition, it is at night, from 23 to 1 o'clock, in the children's body, the hormone responsible for growth is produced.
There are 2 phases of sleep. One of them is fast, and the second is slow. Their change occurs approximately every hour.
- Fast sleep. This phase is characterized by the fact that the baby involuntarily moves its arms and legs, as well as the eyeballs. During REM sleep, the baby sometimes opens his mouth and eyes. During this phase, the baby’s brain processes the information that it received throughout the day. This period takes about half the rest time of the little man.
- Deep dream. The slow phase begins 20 or 30 minutes after falling asleep. At this time, the child is resting and growing. Deep sleep helps the baby recover. Along with growth in children, certain structures form in the brain. This allows you to lengthen periods of deep sleep.
Normal sleep comes to the child, usually after 2-3 years of age. And by the age of five, the duration of its fast phase does not differ from the "adult".
Features of baby sleep
The awakening of the child in the first stages of his life is connected with the desire to eat. In this case, the newborn does not distinguish between time of day. Children aged 1-6 months make intervals between sleep, equal to 1-2 hours. Further, the rest time of the kids is reduced. Starting from 6 and ending with 9 months of their life, they are in the bed during the daytime twice, approximately 3 hours each.
A baby of 9-12 months normally sleeps during the day twice for 2.5 hours. From a year to three years, children, in addition to night, rest for 2-3 hours. Moreover, they independently switch to only one dream in the daytime.
All these data are approximate. Moreover, the duration of daytime sleep depends on various factors.
The usefulness of such a holiday is the key to the normal development of the baby. The main task of parents in this case is the correct organization of the daily routine. This will prevent the baby from getting into bed. He should want to sleep during the day himself.
Daytime sleep
Children who are not yet one year old are resting not only at night. They sleep during the day, and sometimes more than once. What to do if a child who is already more than a year old does not sleep during the day? Such children are already quite capable of resting only at night. That is why it is not worth it to force them to go to bed in the afternoon. The most important thing is that the child during the day spent in a dream the number of hours necessary for his age.
And if the baby does not get to its norm and at the same time the parents see that the child does not sleep well during the day, what should be done in this situation? First of all, mothers and fathers should find out the cause of this phenomenon. This will allow the correction of the situation. The most common causes of poor daytime sleep are as follows:
- Wrong routine. What if the child does not want to sleep during the day? If this happens, then parents should evaluate the time when they begin to lay the baby. The optimal periods for this are 8.30 - 9 hours, as well as 12.30 - 13 hours. It is important that the morning rise of the crumbs be no later than 7 hours. In this case, he will be able to accumulate fatigue in order to want to rest during the day.
- A sharp transition from one activity to another. What to do if the child does not want to sleep during the day? Parents need to remember that children are very curious and active. Daytime hours for them are a time of running around and discovering, laughing and crying, playing games, fun and songs. And the kids only learn how to manage their emotions, including their switching. That is why, when mom says that it’s time to sleep, the child protests, wanting to continue playing and having fun. In order to put him to bed in the daytime, it is necessary to adhere to a consistent and constant ritual. Of course, this should not be a long reading of books, the process of bathing, putting on pajamas, etc. Only some elements of a long evening procedure can be transferred to daytime sleep. Parents should know that children are not very well oriented in time. They pay attention only to the sequence of events.
- Light and noise. What to do, the child sleeps very badly during the daytime? Concerned about this problem, parents should create an appropriate environment for their crumbs. If in the room you can hear the sounds of life seething outside the window and the sun shines brightly, then appropriate measures should be taken. For example, curtain the windows. Especially for this can be purchased cassette blinds made of lightproof fabric. They will not let the sun inside. In extreme cases, you can attach a thick blanket or black garbage bags to the window with tape. White noise will help to fight sounds that are heard from the street. That is what they call a group of sounds, generalized in their cyclicity and monotony. Such a noise will create a background that will absorb everything that can disturb the baby.
- Early transition from laying twice a day. It is necessary to switch to the regime of one sleep during the day when the child is between the ages of 15-18 months. But if the baby is not ready for such a change, then his not yet strong body will simply not withstand a long period of wakefulness. That is why the child should sleep twice as long as possible during the day. If parents see that his first dream begins to interrupt the afternoon, then his time should be limited to one hour. But, nevertheless, the child should continue to offer rest twice.
Sleep phase accounting
From the very birth to 3-4 months, the baby rests for 16-18 hours during the day. Moreover, the rhythms of his sleep are in no way connected with the change of night and day. If the child does not have deviations in the state of health, then he calms down after eating. He wakes up, only getting hungry, forcing his parents to draw attention to themselves with a loud cry.
Frequent awakenings of the baby cause panic in moms and dads. They begin to wonder: “Why does the newborn baby not sleep, what should I do?” Parents need to understand that such a regimen, as well as nightly feeding the baby, is the norm. It’s not worth worrying because of this. But an intermittent and sensitive dream, which is characteristic of infants and does not affect their health, is able to exhaust parents. And that is also not very good.
If a baby sleeps badly a month, what should I do? Parents will need to adapt to the relaxation features of their child. In the first months of the life of a little man in his dream, the duration of the fast phase is approximately 60-80%. If we compare this value for adults, then it is 20%.
Parents should watch their baby. They can see how, when falling asleep, his slightly open eyelids startle. Under them, you can observe the movements of the pupils. The baby’s breathing is irregular. He moves his legs, arms, and sometimes even smiles. During this period, babies dream. If at such a time the newborn is bothered, he will quickly wake up.
When changing phases, which will occur after 15-20 minutes, the baby’s breathing is leveled off. It becomes deeper. At the same time, the frequency of heartbeats decreases, the movements of the arms, legs and eyes stop. In the phase of slow sleep, waking the baby is difficult.
Based on this, if at 1-4 months the baby is sleeping poorly, what should parents do? Wait for the transition of the fast phase to the slow one. Only after this the baby should be put in the crib. But if you do this a little earlier, then the baby will surely wake up. Laying it again for dads and moms will be quite problematic.
Emotional overload
What to do if the baby is not sleeping? Often, parents complain that their child with rest up to 6-8 months was doing well, and after that they seemed to have replaced the crumbs. He began tossing and turning and sometimes even gets on all fours or crawls in a crib without opening his eyes.
What if the child does not sleep well at this age? Parents should not worry. The above is a completely normal phenomenon. From about six months of his life, the crumb has to learn many daily skills in managing his own body and movements. All this is accompanied by a mass of emotions. The nervous system analyzes such impressions during sleep at night. She carefully fulfills and remembers the smallest details. That is why a child in a dream sometimes makes attempts to crawl on all fours, and sometimes even to walk, whimper and laugh.
What to do if the child does not sleep well? In the event that the baby is cheerful and healthy during the day, he has a good appetite and there are no signs of the disease, parents are not recommended to intervene in this situation. A similar tip applies to baby's nightly tremors, which also causes panic. This is not a deviation from the norm. The trembling of the child is the result of the functioning of the nervous system during REM sleep. Most often, such muscle contractions are observed in children up to a year of life if they are easily excitable or have experienced emotional events, such as joy, resentment, or hysteria. As a rule, such phenomena progressively decrease with age.
Sometimes parents complain that the child is crying and not sleeping. What to do with the kid who is naughty at night? The reasons for this condition also lie in the overabundance of emotions in the daytime and evening hours. Parents should analyze the day mode of their child and transfer the noisy fun to an earlier period. This will avoid overexcitation of the baby’s nervous system before bedtime.
Health problems
If a child does not sleep well at night, what should I do? Parents need to pay attention to the health of the child. Mom and dad sometimes do not know what to do. The baby does not sleep at 2 months. The reason for this can be colic. Sometimes they begin in infants from 2-3 weeks from birth and bother them up to 3 months. Sometimes this period can be extended for a longer time. In this case, the baby will suffer from colic for up to 5-6 months. If for this reason the child sleeps little, what should I do? Colic will bother babies less often if a mother who is breastfeeding does not use cucumbers and whole milk, peas and sodas, beans and white cabbage, bell peppers and pears, grapes and raisins during the first months of her life. For babies who eat artificial mixtures, with colic, they give, along with the usual, sour-milk mixtures. Thanks to this combined nutrition, the intestines of the baby produce special enzymes. They serve as components that allow good digestion of food.
Another reason for restless sleep can be teething. What if the child does not sleep for this reason? Parents in such a difficult period for the baby should adhere to the usual daily routine for their child. When carrying out the laying ritual, more time should be devoted to relaxing and calming the baby. You need to monitor the total sleep time during the day.
During teething, mothers should know that their child may need additional feeding. This is especially true at night. After all, babies during teething, as a rule, lose their appetite and eat less during the day.
What if the child does not sleep at night? In the event that the cause of this condition is teething, special teething should be offered during the day. They will help relieve pain. In addition, on the recommendation of a pediatrician, specially designed medicines can be used to normalize infant sleep. They relieve teething pain and provide a long period of restful sleep.
Uncomfortable conditions
What if the child does not sleep, is naughty and tossing and turning in the crib? Uncomfortable clothing, pressure seams or lacing can cause a similar reaction.
Sleep is also disturbed if the air in the sleeping room is dry and warm. This leads to drying out of the nasal mucosa. As a result, breathing is difficult for the child. It can be hot and uncomfortable for the baby even in the case when caring adults covered him with a blanket. It also leads to a decrease in sleep quality.
In order to rectify the situation, parents need to maintain optimal temperature conditions in the room. The column of the thermometer should be at the level of 18-20 degrees, and the humidity should be about 40-60%. In the absence of a comfortable microclimate in the room, it is recommended to ventilate the bedroom well before bedtime.
Kids up to three years old can wake up several times at night. And this is the norm for children of this age. Parents should not worry about this. However, if such awakenings are too painful for mothers and fathers, then it is necessary to try to normalize the baby's sleep. To do this, the first thing it is recommended to analyze the crumbs menu. The baby needs to eat well during the day. This will not allow him to wake up at night from hunger. In the evening, parents should include bread and cereals, cheese and yogurt, fruits and eggs in the diet.
Behavioral Insomnia
A similar violation in infancy can be determined if the child has difficulty falling asleep and is not able to independently maintain a prolonged sleep.
As a rule, babies older than 3-4 months of age wake up when an irritating factor occurs, and after its disappearance they continue their rest without the help of their parents. This does not happen with those children who have increased excitability. They cannot continue an interrupted dream without a mother. Moreover, each time they need prolonged motion sickness and the presence of adults.
Often, behavioral insomnia occurs when a child is overworked, as well as in the event of an excess of his daytime emotions. In this case, sleep disturbances are noted in the first half of the night. The child may wake up from the steps or from the slightest noise. After that, parents will have to put it in bed for at least 30-40 minutes.
Improper organization of the regime
What to do, the child does not sleep well in a year and even after that? Experts note that the most common cause of this phenomenon are the mistakes of parents when they organize a baby’s regime. This includes falling asleep in bed only with mom or in her arms, mandatory motion sickness or feeding, holding a finger in the mouth, etc. All of these factors are classified as bad habits leading to sleep disorders. In such situations, the baby who was prevented by something from resting can no longer sleep on his own. He will demand from his mother to ensure the performance of the usual rituals for him. For parents, these nights turn into a nightmare. And all this can last more than one year.
To correct the situation will allow a gradual change in stereotypes of going to bed and nightly behavior. It is worth stopping rocking the baby, offering him a drink, etc. And in the case when the child woke up and began to cry, it is recommended to gradually increase the time intervals of the “arrival of help”.
The confusion of day and night
A large role in the life of babies is played by their internal biological rhythm. So, there are children - “owls” and “larks”. Sometimes the regime set by the child by the parents does not coincide with its biological rhythm. And then the adults are tormented by the following question: "What to do, the child goes to bed late?" And he just has no desire to go to bed early. In the morning, it’s rather difficult for him to wake up. In addition, there is a mixture of all sleep processes - day and night. The result of such failures is the occurrence of disturbances in the functioning of the whole organism. The child is often naughty, loses his appetite. He has a weakening of immunity. , .
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Sleep disturbances in a child can be signs of serious illness. The baby in such cases wakes up at night and cries. Moreover, in his sobs you can hear a lot of tension and drama, irritability and suffering, monotony and monotony. Painful screams are often combined with pronounced muscle tension, motor excitement, as well as a change in the color of the skin. Parents should be aware that, unlike crying, which occurs with behavioral disorders, when the mother can rock the baby, pathological tears are very difficult to relieve. Even with the use of all kinds of tricks and means by parents, it is almost impossible to lull a child. If he falls asleep, then only for a short time. After this, sobs flare up with renewed vigor.
In such situations, mothers and fathers should not rely on their own experience and intuition. The child must be shown to the pediatrician.